InsideSales Reveals Revamped Sales Acceleration Platform Ahead Of Dreamforce

As artificially intelligent sales tools prepare to take center stage next week at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference, InsideSales, a Salesforce partner that's been honing that technology for longer than a decade, is debuting a revamped platform.

The Utah-based sales-acceleration software vendor introduced InsideSales Playbooks on Wednesday, its next-generation platform for delivering to sales reps predictive insights gleaned from machine learning algorithms and troves of contextual data, said Avanish Sahai, the company's channel chief.

InsideSales, partially owned by Salesforce and Microsoft, streamlined and modernized the platform's user interface in addition to adding functionality around strategic contact strategies and integrations with communications features.

[Related: CRN Exclusive: InsideSales Launches Channel Amid Rapid Growth]

Playbooks comes just as Salesforce is to formally introduce Einstein, a set of self-learning capabilities infused into all its apps as well as a platform for developing artificially intelligent solutions.

InsideSales product strategy and vision was developed in close consultation with more than 50 customers, Sahai told CRN.

"We did a lot of studies watching customers and users and how they interacted with our software," he said.

Those sales agents tended to jump back and forth across multiple tabs, spending some time in InsideSales, some on their CRM, some using a variety of other tools. A lot of cutting and pasting was involved.

"The realization was there's a new paradigm where InsideSales can be most helpful," Sahai said.

Looking to help customers consume those solutions more naturally, the company reengineered its platform to be delivered with a plug-in through the browser that integrates the core capabilities of its Neuralytics predictive analytics engine, massive data sets, power dialer and CRM synchronization.

The "contemporary and modern design" saves reps time by eliminating manual processes, increasing their efficiency in prospecting and contacting leads.

Andy Atkins, CEO of CRM Manager, a systems integrator headquartered in Philadelphia, Penn., told CRN the more user-friendly interface will compliment a technology that has developed a strong track record in the market.

CRM Manager was InsideSales' first implementation partner, he said, and since that relationship began, the solutions provider has completed 35 implementations of the technology on top of Salesforce.

"Our team is very keen to expand that, and Playbooks is obviously that next level," Atkins said. "It's going to help close more InsideSales deals."

CRM Manager also uses the product in their own business.

"The ability to capture meaningful information from the data you have, that's a key," Atkins said.

InsideSales launched its channel program in May, and now has 13 partners in the program, according to Sahai.

"When our partners see things like Playbooks, they realize we continue to keep that pace of innovation," Sahai told CRN.

As for Einstein, Salesforce's coming artificial intelligence products are validating the technology, and "giving more infrastructure and more access for the kind of AI we've been building and delivering for quite some time," Sahai said.

While the Salesforce platform will unleash a new batch of predictive applications built by partner ISVs, none will match InsideSales expansive data sets and knowledge of sales dynamics, he said.